A young Palestinian man was shot dead and another injured by Israeli soldiers near Nablus last Saturday.

According to Ma'an, locals said Israeli troops opened fire on a group of Palestinian youth after they threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli settler cars, driving on a bypass road near the village of Burin south of Nablus.

Soldiers responded by shooting live fire at the Palestinians' "lower extremities," an Israeli army spokeswoman told Ma'an News Agency.

19-year-old Ahmed Ibrahim Jaber al-Najjar was shot in the neck and died, and another young man was lightly injured.

On Sunday, one day after the incident, thousands of mourners attended the funeral march as Ahmad al-Najjar's corpse was carried from the Burin mosque through the streets to the village cemetery. Palestinian flags, Fatah flags, and flags of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) were waved by mourners. They chanted slogans against the Israeli occupation, urging Palestinian factions to take revenge for al-Najjar's death.

Burin belongs to the long list of Palestinian villages that came under Israeli occupation after the 1967 Six-Day war. According to a 2012 UN report, the land and water resources of Burin have been steadily reduced due to continuous land expropriation for Israeli settlements and military bases.

Since 1982, more than 2,000 dunams of Burin's land was first declared "state land," and then handed over to the settlements built encircling the village. Most villagers’ olive trees are either on annexed land, and therefore out of reach, or have been destroyed by settlers.

Along with the annexation of land and resources, there have been a number of provocative actions toward the villagers by the Israeli military and settlers. In August last year, for example, the Israeli military fired tear gas at 6-year old school children on their way to school.

While not wanting to belittle the seriousness of throwing Molotov cocktails, the act has to be seen in the context of the insidious nature of Israel’s steadily encroaching occupation and the on-going harassment by both the Israeli military and settlers.